Union joins fight to clean up asbestos mine
Posted
One of Australia's biggest unions is joining Tamworth Regional Council to get the New South Wales Government to clean up an abandoned mine site at Barraba.
The Australia Manufacturers Workers Union says it will campaign to get the Woodsreef mine, in the state's north, cleaned up.
The news follows confirmation from former site workers that some people who had worked at the mine have had asbestos-related diseases.
Asbestos diseases campaigner Barry Robson says since he raised concerns about the Woodsreef mine with the ABC earlier this month, he has been contacted by several people from the area with asbestos-related diseases.
"We've uncovered a couple of people with asbestos diseases that have either worked at the mine or been associated with it," he said.
Hunter New England Health has conducted safety tests at the site, but will not make the results public, saying the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) is in charge of the investigation.
Mr Robson says the secrecy is little more than departmental buck-passing.
"They just don't know how to handle this, because it's in the bush, it's out of sight, out of mind," he said.
A DPI spokeswoman says the type and extent of environmental monitoring at the mine is being considered.
She says it is also concerned about the amount of vandalism that occurs at the site.
